Tuesday, 21 September 2010

South London Residents demand – Bring the Bike Hire Scheme to Stockwell!

This morning South London residents joined Labour Councillors to launch their campaign to bring the TFL Barclay's Cycle Hire scheme to Stockwell.

Local Councillors Alex Bigham, Imogen Walker, Peter Robbins and Pete Bowyer were outside the tube station asking local people to sign the petition calling the 'Mayor of London to extend the Barclay's Cycle Hire Scheme to Stockwell at the earliest possible convenience'.

Over 120 people signed the petition in just 1 hour – a rate of 2 every minute. Many were concerned that the bike scheme docking stations are disproportionately located in North, rather than South London.

Local resident Alex Baker said, “As someone who lives in Stockwell and regularly commutes to central London it’s important that the Mayor doesn’t forget people that live South of the river. Bringing the bike hire scheme to Stockwell would ease pressure on the tube station and buses which are already massively overcrowded in rush hour.”

Cllr Alex Bigham said, “We have to ensure that the bike hire scheme isn’t just for Zone 1 and helps people in South London to get around and get fit. The support we had for the petition from local people shows how important an issue this is, and how successful the scheme would be if it came to Stockwell.”

The campaign is continuing to collect signatures and has already been backed by Councillor Steve Reed, the Leader of Lambeth Council who mentioned it on his twitter page (http://twitter.com/cllrstevereed)

The Cycle Hire scheme currently extends to Vauxhall, Kennington and Oval which boarder Stockwell. Extensions to the Cycle Hire Scheme will ease pressure on the very busy Northern & Victoria tube lines that converge at Stockwell.

About this Blog

This site was set up by people who want to stand up for Stockwell. It has community information about Stockwell as well as news from your Labour action team- Alex Bigham, Guilherme Rosa and Imogen Walker.